Faded away
by Blackheart Dracon
Summary: Barad-Dur has fallen, Sauron is being adjudicated in Valinor. Slightly AU for he has never been adjudicated - he was left as a bodyless spirit in Arda for all time.


Disclaimer: I don't own Annatar nor Melkor.

Everything is lost… There is no chance left for victory any longer. There is no more chance left for revenge. Never again there will be a chance to put everything back into its place. Never again he will feel the steel of his Master's gaze, pressing down as hard as his Mace's strike, never again he will hear the word "nonentity" falling down from his Master's lips as a drop of liquid metal.

Annatar sneers. Who could have thought that he would long for the word "nonentity"?

Well, no, he decided, not for the word – for the voice. But only "nonentity" came into his brain and nothing else, maybe because he truly in fact was nothing. Was and is as weak as his Master had always told him.

Annatar doesn't listen. Somewhere so far away, that almost in the infinity, Manwë renders him his sentence.

Annatar doesn't want to listen. What's the point of listening if he already knows each word that will be pronounced, each glance filled with scorn? The smell of honey and blossom slowly leaks into his none-existing nostrils.

Annatar snorts. The smell is so heavy, that it could have been drawn by hands, if had had them, and so sweet, that it is suffocative. This smell is the core of Valinor – The Blooming Blessed Realm. For the Valar – the materiel, the fabric of reality. For him – venom of idleness and spiritless splendor, a beautiful… Nonentity.

Annatar is tired. The lack of body presses on him harder than a possession of one. In a form of a bat or a Child of Eru fëa cannot dissolve – she has her borders. And now, when there is nothing except for fëa, Annatar gives away all his willpower to still stay for what he is and not to break into shards, in which there will be naught, but his dying fire.

Manwë has ended, and Varda now takes his place. Annatar sneers again. Pity, nobody can hear his mockers and nobody can see his lips twist with disdain – for he has no voice and he has no mouth.

Annatar muses. What does he look like for the Valar? A sphere of flame? Or the became symbol of Mirk – the Lidless Fiery Eye? Annatar laughs. What strange thoughts occur to Men sometimes. Did they really suppose him, Annatar, to be staying on the roof of Barad-Dûr for centuries in a form of a burning eye? Or is it all in all just a skillful metaphor of the _Palantir_?

Annatar sighs. He wants peace, he wants sleep.

The eternity is long indeed, but even it has its end.

The sentence is drawn. Towards him, from out of the deafeningly bright vortices of light, comes the Gate. It is darker than the Darkness. And deeper than the Abyss. There is no way back from behind. Outside there is non-darkness and non-light.

A Force that is more powerful than Annatar draws him from the thresholds of Arda.

He is free. He feels himself light. He has to spend his own forces no more on keeping the motes of time and sounds his fëa consists of together.

Here is nothing left of the smell of Valinor – of the poison, that dominates over will and mind, presses them down.

Here is no light and no darkness. These concepts are left beyond the Gate, like the concepts of time and space also are. Here is even no emptiness, because emptiness is that, what is left, when that which was there, is gone. And here there is nothing.

And this non-place is his last hope.

"Melkor?" he calls inside of his head. "Melkor!"

His Master must be here, he must hear him. Annatar can't see anything for there is naught to see here, but he tries to listen even knowing that here are no sounds and here is no silence.

Strangely, but the non-darkness, which was wrapping itself around him, seems to start scattering. And his non-existing palm feels a cold sensation.

Annatar flinches – his fëa pulses – and instinctively squeezes his hand. And nearly weeps in relief while feeling in his fingers the familiar taste of mirk and metal.

"Melkor?" still barely believing, whispers Annatar.

The answer is not there. The sensation fades away from his hand and gently touches his none-existing cheek.

Melkor is here, Annatar knows it, though he only imagines himself that his Master is touching him – for there is no sensation here.

"Melkor?" Annatar calls for once more. Why doesn't his Master want to talk to him? Because he had failed in his plans of revenge? Lost the last chance to pull his Master out of here?

Annatar can't see, but vaguely feels the denial coming from Melkor. Then he understands – if they had been incarnated in Arda Master would have shook his head.

Does not osanwë work here?'

Sure, thinks Annatar, for here are no thoughts. But Melkor understood that he is here, no matter how – but he understood.

From Master to Annatar comes a strange wave. It could have been compared to the sound of sunny raindrops falling onto the young spring leaves of a forest, although such a memory is hard in restoration for Annatar. He frowns in a true to convert such an unknown method of conversation into something familiar to himself. Yes, he, it seems, has succeeded. Melkor is laughing.

"What are you laughing at, Master?" asks Annatar aloud. But without a sound, for there are no sounds here.

Melkor laughs again.

Annatar gets silent and deepens into his own mind. Feels how with in a grayish wave there wreathes Melkor's expectation. His Master wants him to understand something.

Annatar can't understand anything for there is no understanding here and nothing to understand. Near him Master's expectation turns from grey into tones of a menacing scarlet.

Annatar freezes in the row of his own thoughts. Around him there still are the non-light and the non-darkness, but he… He had seen colour. Not with his non-existing eyes, but he had seen that threatening grim red shade. And that means…

Annatar smiles. Melkor's expectation near him fades and turns into deep-blue satisfaction and hot auburn-coloured pride.

Annatar keeps silent, sending Melkor an answering wave consisting of the coded question "is that what you wished for, Master?".

And receives a melted "aye".

They have always brought Distortion with them. And even here It had not left them. They managed to change the ever unchangeable, managed to end the eternity. Here, in a non-place of non-existing nothingness, they have managed to make Sound, Colour, Sensation. They have managed to be together again.

And together they will manage to cast down the Gate.


End file.
